Working for three years without a salary can be distressing especially for married persons with several demands to meet. But that seemed to have been the plight of outsourced workers comprising security guards, gardeners, and cleaners at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Osun State.
According to Saturday PUNCH, it was gathered that the last salary received by this category of workers was in May 2017. Also, from a document by the leadership of the Environmental Health Service Providers Association of Nigeria, the supervisory body of the workers, there are 556 workers in the hospital.
A breakdown of the figure shows that 174 are cleaners and gardeners, while 382 are security guards. The highest-paid workers receive N15, 000 monthly.
The workers are still hoping for the payment of the owed salary even as they continued making efforts to draw the attention of the relevant authorities to their plight.
Our correspondent learnt that the affected workers at the tertiary healthcare facility enjoyed regular salary payment from 2007 when they were contracted until 2012 when the contractors were reduced to 12.
But sometime in 2014 however, there were indications of looming trouble when the workers were owed salary for a year. But respite came in 2015 after the outstanding months were paid.
But since May 2017, it was gathered that all the affected workers had been left with memories of the good old days. Four of them, including a director, had reportedly died within the period, while a cleaner was said to have lost her 22-year old son, owing to her inability to raise money for test and operation.
Eleven of the cleaners were said to be down with various ailments and one of the affected workers reportedly lost an eye to a sickness.
An investigation by Saturday PUNCH revealed that the workers were employed by some contractors relating to the hospital on their behalf.
It was further gathered that anytime there was a delay in the release of funds to the hospital from the Federal Government, the management usually paid the workers from its Internally Generated Revenue.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the contractors, said the matter reached its peak in 2017 following the implementation of the Treasury Single Account, which successfully blocked all alternative means the management explored in the past to pay the workers.